BES Assignment 6 (Greenwich)

Today we went to Greenwich via a riverboat tour. We explored Greenwich, saw a lot of stuff, and made our way back on the DLR, seeing the Canary Wharf area. What we saw included: the prime meridian, Royal Observatory, National Maritime Museum, Queen's Gallery, and Greenwich Market. All had different cultural insights to offer.

Abby & Me on the Prime Meridian

After the death hill climb up to the Royal Observatory we made it to the prime meridian. The idea of being in two different hemispheres was neat, a little mind blowing, but cool. I really enjoyed the museum/ Royal Observatory because I am obsessed with clocks. There was a giant grandfather clock that you could open and look into how it runs. We made our way down to the National Maritime Museum and the Queen's Gallery, located next to each other...what different atmospheres. I really enjoyed the Maritime Museum, but almost fell asleep in the Queen's Gallery. The maritime museum was fun, interesting, and even romantic at times. I immediately liked it when I walked into the first room and saw one of my favorite love quotes from Romeo & Juliet on the wall. Museums can sometime be super boring but this one was really fun. Aside from the 500 screaming kids running around in pirate outfits I enjoyed spending time there. We then made our way to the Queen's Gallery, what a drag...afterwards we were all ready for some food. We followed our noses to the Greenwich Market, filled with food, jewelry, and Greenwich specialized products. After hearing that Greenwich's "Cafe Sol" restaurant had some of the best Mexican food in London, we decided to have a go. Pretty accurate description, I haven't had any Mexican food since being here, but I'm sure it ranks in the top categories. On our way to lunch we saw a little gelatto/cupcake shop that we went to for dessert after lunch. They had dozens of flavors, all in Italian. After sampling some I decided to get the pancake flavored cupcake, soooo good!  

Inside the Maritime Museum

Wall with love quotes in the Maritime Museum 

We made our way home via the DLR to Canary Wharf. Mark was right when he said the Canary Wharf tube station was like a museum. It was very nicely decorated and seemed high class. On our way from the station we got into to the Jubilee line we walked through part of the Canary Wharf area...all I could think while I was there was, "I bet this would be a great place to find a nice rich boy"...is that bad? haha but seriously, they were everywhere! From what I know about the ritzy-business atmosphere of Canary Wharf, I don't think that it's a far assumption.    

Overall, Greenwich provided me with a further insight into a different aspect of English culture. The streets and gates were decorated with anchors and ropes to commemorate the maritime museum, which I thought was charming. I wish it would have been a little warmer out for the riverboat tour. Since we usually go on day tours far away from London I kept forgetting that we were still in zone 2, London has so much to offer just a short distance away!

BES-Assignment 3 (Interview)

For this assignment I interviewed Beth Jones, 23 year old associate publisher of "This is London" magazine, also one of my bosses for my internship. She is Julie Jones' daughter, the editor in chief of the magazine, who I also work under. I've gotten to know Beth as a work mentor and friend throughout the semester. I decided to interview her for this assignment because I am genuinely interested in her opinions and insights into British culture. I asked her a few questions from each of the eight categories as follows.

Family
Her immediate family consists of her and her brother David, both living at their home in Essex with her two married parents. Her non-immediate family isn't very big, but her aunt and uncle come over every Sunday, and her gran every six weeks. When I asked if more people are single or living alone than in the past, she said that she thinks more people are living with their friends than moving in with a significant other. She talked about the pressures placed on children in the UK as being centered around education. Children are expected to begin performing to impress Universities at a young age. She added that teens and young people are expected to be able to sustain themselves financially at a younger age than before.

Faith
Beth said that faith is still important in British life, not as big as it used to be. She compared it to a rock or foundation that holds people together. She is a member of the Church of England, although she doesn't attend church.

Remembrance
As a young woman I was interested to see how the August riots of 2011 impacted her. She said, "The riots didn't impact me emotionally, but since we live by Tottenham Court Road (where some of the riots occurred) my dad wasn't able to go to work."

Identity
Beth is very proud to be British, she loves it. She defined British attitudes as polite with a very unique sense of humor and wit. She believes that the UK's strengths lie in their quality of work, "You can tell that when we do things we do them right, they are well executed." Some famous living Brits that she admires are: Richard Branson, Kate Middleton, The Queen and the royals, and Vivienne Westwood. Above all was Richard Branson, who she admires for making his mark like no one else has. When asked about her views on the USA she responded, "It feels like a whole other world away, like it's on a different planet. It's obviously a crucial valuable international relationship to have."

Politics
Beth defined her political views as conservative, so she is glad the current government is conservative rather than laborer. Although she thinks the current system works, it takes a long time to accomplish anything. She thinks that the UK is the cornerstone of Europe and the EU, and it couldn't function without it. Going along with that, she does not think that the UK should join the Euro, especially not now when the value of the pound is rising. She thinks that it's the UK's responsibility to help Greece in its debt crisis as well as supporting Ireland. It was obvious after her saying Kate and the royal family are some of the people she admires most that she is a fan of the monarchy. She loves it, and believes that as a British institution it is intricate to their identity, "If you go out on the street, 90% of people will agree with me. Even though there are a few 'Queen haters' most Brits love it and would go crazy if the Queen were removed as head of state."

Multiculturalism 
Beth thinks that the UK is very culturally diverse, but that racism still exists in some areas and in some people. Being from Essex (the London equivalent of Jersey Shore) she says that sometimes people stereotype her like the people from the show.

Leisure 
In her spare time Beth likes to go to the gym, she goes almost every day. She enjoys being around kids, which she hopes to have two of someday. She has a love for skiing, so it's no surprise that one of her favorite holiday destination is Courchevel France, where she can ski and visit her boyfriend Ben. If she's not away, her weekends consist of going to the gym, laundry, movies, shopping, and spending time with her mom. "I used to be so cool! Ha ha, now I spend weekends recovering from work with my mom, who I work with anyways. We spend a lot of time together!" Her favorite places and spaces in London include 'The Vault' (club), and loads of different restaurants.

Overall, this interview with Beth gave me a deeper insight into British culture and what it means to her to be British.

Internship Weekly-Journal 8

Holly Osborn

Tuesday 13 March & Wednesday 14 March                                                           Total Hours: 9

Queen of Sheba Painting

This week was yet another week that made me step back and ask myself, "Is this really my life?" Tuesday we got up, expecting to do edits and subbings, but Julie informed us as 10am that at 11am we'd need to meet her at the National Portrait Gallery. I ran upstairs to change out of my yoga pants and into proper intern clothes. We made it to the National Gallery, meeting Julie on the steps in Trafalgar, where she told us we'd be attending a press-viewing of the 'Claude inspired by Turner' exhibition. We got in, it was the first time me-Lucy-Beth-and Julie were all at a press viewing together. There were a lot of people at this one, as there should have been, it was an incredible exhibition. The paintings ranged from small sketches to large-scale intricate wall paintings. My favorite one was titled, "The Queen of Sheba," with its beautiful colors and incredible details in people I understand why everyone was so excited.

Claude piece

I don't really understand art too well, but I was able to appreciate its beauty. This was our first press viewing at the National Gallery, we got tea and breakfast goodies after the curators tour. We split up, Lucy and I returning to Vandon where we got to work on other projects. First we had subbings to do, only 6 each though so it didn't take too long. Then came the hefty job...we were assigned to find every concert going on in London from 22 March to the end of April...woah! With dozens of venues, concert times, and contact information this took quite a while. After I was done with my half, my word document was 10 pages long! After that my brain couldn't stare at a computer screen any longer and I called it a day.

Today was supposed to be another jam-packed day, but we suffered some mis-communication. We got dressed up and went to the V&A museum for the press viewing of the "British Design" exhibition, which is set to be the V&A's largest spring exhibition. After arriving and searching/asking for help, we found out that we were two weeks early. Well, at least now we know where it is? Since we didn't do that we were able to return to Vandon to have lunch with Central College's President, Mark Putnum and his wife, Tammy. Just a short while later we also had the privilege of taking Dr. Putnum and Tammy at the Royal Festival Hall to meet Beth, and talk about our wonderful internship. It was cool to talk about all of the awesome things we get to do, especially with someone who helps create this fabulous program. I was a little nervous for Beth, as there was me-Lucy-Mark-Jen-President Putnum-Tammy-and the international coordinator from Central-all directing questions at Beth. She did great, very professional and flattering, characteristics I hope to embody as a career-woman someday.

Overall, it was a productive week filled with new adventures around London. As my last required internship blog entry I want to say that I am so grateful for my internship. I love it so much and have gotten to experience so many opportunities. I can't wait for the rest of the semester to see what "This is London" has in store for me!

Internship Weekly- Journal 7

Holly Osborn

Tuesday 3 March & Wednesday 4 March                                   Total Hours: 9

We did not do anything excruciatingly exciting this week, not to say that what we did did not matter. I had to remind myself that what we were doing was important. On Tuesday we met up at the office at Stour Space, it was the first time Lucy & I had to find our way their by ourselves. Usually one of them comes to pick us up from the tube station because you have to have a permit to come into Olympic Park Village. Of course we got lost, and let's just say this is not an area we should be lost in for too long. But eventually we found it and sat down to get to work. Julie was busy getting the current issue to press so we met with Beth. While together we proof-read and checked the magazines' phone numbers. We found that the dry cleaner's number they were using had gone bust so we found a new one. Tuesday afternoon we ran some errands to pick up leaflets. I went to the Royal Albert Hall & Royal College of Music to get concert leaflets. After putting them in the post we returned to Vandon to verify even more numbers, this time they wanted us to verify all of the box office numbers posted in the theatre section. It got a little tedious and awkward (I never knew what to say once they actually picked up) but eventually we got it done, and actually found quite a few errors that needed correcting.

Wednesday was a little frustrating. We went to bed Tuesday not knowing what we were doing the next day, but we got up and ready just in case. I finished an article from last week about the shopping we did, sent that in. Around 11:30am she emailed us saying that by 1pm we'd each need to proof-read the entire magazine and email the corrections to her. So we grabbed our highlighters and got to work. Around page 10 I started going on auto-pilot, I had to re-focus to make sure I didn't miss anything. Cut it pretty close to 1pm but we both got them in.

Not the most glamorous week we've had with our internship; no cool pictures, but honestly when you think about it, that's the typical week of an intern. I forget how lucky we are with our internship. Even listening to other Central students, they always get jealous of what we do, and this week showed me why. It's not always fun to run errands all over the place, or not know what you're going to have to do the next day. I had to realize that dirty-work is part of the experience of an intern. One cultural difference I've noticed since being here is that the working environment is much more laid-back. It's the quality not quantity of the work that matters. Last week when we went to Harrods and Fortnum & Mason Julie told us to go and have an experience, not just walk through. As an American journalist I'm used to going to an event, doing a few interviews, and cranking an article out quickly. Here, it's quality not quantity that matters.

What I've Been up to :)

The past few weeks have been a lot of fun, time here is going way too fast, I can't believe it's already mid March! I am trying to make the most of my time here by doing something  every second of the day, no lazy-days and no sleeping in. I can sleep when I get home in May!

Us meeting Chris from 'Got to Dance' 

Some big and exciting things that have happened recently include: Phantom of the Opera, Canterbury and Leeds day trip, going to the 'Got to Dance' live season finale, and a weekend in Paris (blog on that to come). We were given books about London when we first got here and I went to the 'London for free' section and saw that a lot of shows give tickets to live recordings for free. I applied for 10, and got 6...so we went in the rain Sunday morning and waited for our tickets, finally getting them at 1ish...on our way back to the tube station a red-headed guy with a pick in his hair got out of a car and these Londoners got out and started screaming and running over to him. We figured he must be famous so we decided. "hey let's take a picture with him!" We came home and researched it, turns out he's one of the member's in the duo that won last season, cool! The show itself was awesome, there were 6,000 people there! It was really neat to see how a live show recording works with commercial breaks and audience reactions. My favorite crew even won the 250,000 pound prize at the end!

The live set of the show

Even though I get to experience a lot of big and exciting things in London sometimes it's the small unique things that enhance my days here. For example, I got addicted to the Hunger Games books, read the first two in a few days, need to go buy the third one...but the movie is coming out this week, and it's premiering here...red carpet here I come! In addition, I found a YMCA while in line for church two weeks ago, and went in to see if I can work out there for free since I am a member in America. Turns out I can go 5 times for free, hey I'll take it. So I went last Wednesday to see what it was all about. It was like 4-floors full of workout equipment, a pool, sport courts, a cafe, physical therapy, and even a spa. It was much bigger and fancier than my YMCA at home, but I could still tell it was a YMCA. I wore a Central football t-shirt (had a football helmet on it), so I had a few people ask me if I was an American, didn't even think about that. Another thing that I didn't think about occurred in the free-weight room. Usually I do dumbbell side-bends with 45lb weights. So I went over and picked up a dumbbell that had '45' on it, not even thinking...turns out it was 45 kilograms, which is like 100lbs...dropped in, almost broke my foot, embarrassing!


I know that I am experiencing a lot of awesome things, but when I talk to my friends and family from back home I realize just how amazing this experience is. I was thinking about how I live in Denver, a big and exciting city, but I really didn't approach it the same way as I am with London. I hope that when I get back I can look at it with a new perspective and embrace every opportunity that I can. I don't want to leave with any regrets, I'm usually an active person, but lately I've been kicking it into over-drive, wanting to squeeze every opportunity that I can from this semester abroad.

Internship Weekly-Journal 6

Holly Osborn

Tuesday & Wednesday 28-29 February                                                  Total Hours: 9

This week Lucy and I did a lot. Yesterday we were assigned to go to different venues to get leaflets and diaries for upcoming events. We split up so we could get it done faster. I went to the Barbican Centre (way out where we usually go). It's hard to find, but since I'd been there for an assignment before I was able to find it. I waited for like 30 minutes for a March diary of events so eventually the man working gave me their copy, which was nice. I then made my way to Wigmore Hall near Oxford Street. All day the tube lines were delayed, needless to say I'm glad I brought a book to read. At 2:30 we made our way to Trafalgar Square to meet Julie on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery. We went inside to the cafe where we got tea (look at me, getting addicted to tea), where we gave her the leaflets we collected. She then went over some of our work she proofread, making suggestions and letting us know what we needed to fix. We hadn't seen Julie in 3 or so weeks, so it was good to touch base with her. We came back, made the corrections on the work she went over with us, and called it a day.

Inside of Harrods

Today was probably another one of my favorite days/"is this really my life" days. We were assigned to go shopping (rough) at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason's. When I say shopping I mean look around and see what our 5-star tourists would like to buy...because honestly I would have to use all the rest of my London money to afford a scarf in there. Although I couldn't buy anything I had a blast looking around. Harrods is like Bergdorf Goodman in America...it's huge, has everything you could ever need, but it will cost you an arm and a leg to get it. They had restaurants, a wine/cigar cellar, appliance area, as well as every other typical large department store. My favorite area was the women's dresses area, where they had 5,000 pound red-carpet dresses, which I am sure I will dream of wearing while I sleep tonight. We then made our way to Fortnum & Mason's, not easy to miss with it's adorable outdoor musical decorations. This place was a lot more quirky and open than Harrods. We were surprised to find that it didn't have clothes, but a lot of other small specialty items. It was a little less pricey, but don't get me wrong I still found a 2,500 pound bottle of Dom Perignon. I saw a ton of adorable tea-pots that I will definitely go back for at the end of the program if I have extra money. We came back, arranged our thoughts into notes for a later piece, and called it a day. You really could spend a whole day in these stores if you wished.

2,500 GBT Bottle of Dom Perignon 

Adorable music art in Fortnum & Mason

Last week I wrote about trying tea for the first time, now this week I can safely say that I have become addicted to it. For the first time when we met Julie I could order a tea with everyone else and not just a lame hot chocolate. I thought this addiction was harmless, until my mom informed me that tea has caffeine in it, now I'm in trouble. Aside from more tea adventures, a cultural experience that I had this week was being able to experience a more posh lifestyle of Londoners. Although I couldn't spend money in Harrods I got to observe how the people who shopped their live. People seemed less rushed than those who frantically run around Oxford Street are, and the sales people didn't get up in our faces trying to convince us to buy their product. I was afraid they weren't going to let me in my sweatshirt and jeans, but they did. It was definitely a more relaxed shopping experience than I'm used to. I saw a woman walk out with like 6 full bags of stuff, I wonder how much she spent? Probably as much as my house is worth back home :)

BES Reflective Journal-Week 6

After two weekends of trips and travelling this past week I attempted to do what I could to make this past week more budget friendly. I'd say I did a pretty good job. Regardless, it was still an awesome week, but seemed to be filled with things that reminded me of home.

Monday night we went and saw "One Man, Two Guvnors," for theatre class. It was hilarious, but contained a lot of strong British humor that made me step back and think, "Whoa, are they really allowed to do that on a public stage!?" I really enjoyed it, but I don't know how well it will do in America because of how strong the British humor is throughout. Tuesday and Wednesday I had my internship, filled with different tasks (which if you care to learn about are in my internship blog from last week). Before class on Thursday I was not feeling well, good thing we took the bus because I had to get off at a random stop and try to find a bathroom...good thing I have such good friends :) The weather has been super nice, so I've found myself walking to more places and going on night excursions. It's fun to see the city at night-time, every place is different. For example, the area that we live in, Victoria, shuts down around 8pm-ish...but go to Picadilly or Trafalgar and things are lively until the wee hours of the morning.

Hillsong Church

A lot of peoples' friends, family, and significant others are starting to come and visit. It's fun to meet new people, but it makes me wish I had someone I knew coming to visit me. I was able to Skype for a couple of hours Sunday with different people from home. I miss everyone, but am certainly not ready to leave yet :) I spent like 4 hours doing homework this weekend and am done for the next 3 weeks...rough life! ha. Another thing that reminded me of home this week was going to church at Hillsong on Sunday. It's a large church held at the Dominion Theatre (where they host "We will Rock You"). With its loud-rock music and fun atmosphere it reminded me of my church from back home...which surprisingly is even bigger and more awesome, but I may be a little biased. Previously I'd just been attending Church of England's conservative services, so it was great to go to a service that I actually get something out of. Finally, one of my friends from the program, Ashley, had two friends (Colin and Breann) from Spain come to visit her. Ashley and I learned early on that we were from the same hometown, but we had never met before, even though we knew a lot of the same people...so of course her friends were also from Arvada too, and also knew a lot of my friends. Colin's mom and my mom even knew each other from the twin's club...oh and we live like 5 minutes away from each other...weird, I go halfway around the world and meet people from my neighborhood that I've never seen before.



This weekend I had two new cultural experiences. On Saturday night I went to see "The Vow," at the O'Dean theatre. Although it was an American movie, the experience of seeing one in a British theatre was just a bit different. We were given assigned seats, in America it's first come first serve basis. The screen was set back behind what looked like a theatre stage. Other than that it was about the same, it was nice to see an American movie, to remind me of back home. Then on Sunday me and a group of girls went to John Lewis on Oxford street and did afternoon tea! Originally, we made reservations at Bea's of Bloomsbury, until we found out it was 17 pounds! We found John Lewis where we paid 10 pounds for a pot of tea and a whole plate of assorted goodies (finger sandwiches, biscuits, cakes, jam, and cookies). It was awesome, I loved it. But I was so stuffed that I didn't eat anything the rest of the day. Before going I remember Mark telling us of a certain type of tea that's really good but will clog your arteries...so I obviously wanted to try it. So while ordering I asked for the 'clotted cream tea'...out waiter looked at me like I was an alien...turns out 'clotted cream' is butter...I felt like such an idiot, but it was mildly hilarious.

Afternoon Tea...yummy!!!

Even though I did pretty well budgeting this week, I still managed to make a few exceptions for big-scale thing later. We bought tickets for Phantom of the Opera this Thursday for Abby's birthday. I've seen it on Broadway before, which was awesome, so I'm excited to see it here and compare the two. In addition,we bought tickets to the 'hot in demand' Warner Brother's Harry Potter tour in April. For thirty pounds it better be awesome, and I'm crossing my fingers that they allow me to fly a broom to Hogwarts :)